As you can tell from the last post I've been thinking a lot lately, for like the past year, about what it means to live according to God's will. It hasn't been easy but I'm happy and blessed, I think, to feel like I've come to some answers that work for me. It's been a long road, lots of twists, turns and seeming reverses. And sometimes it's felt dark.

Recently I've been rewatching the all-too-genius, ended-too-soon show Deadwood. This is the third or fourth time watching the first season and each time I get something different. This time these two conversations really stood out to me. The show is about how people build community, in the semi-historical setting of Deadwood, a real town in the Black Hills of South Dakota that sprung up around the gold strikes but that existed illegally in defiance of treaties signed with the Lakota. So as to not appear secessionist there was no formal administration of the town. The show explores how people form community using language and power, whether physical, intellectual or class or gender based. One of my favorite characters is Reverend Smith, who seems to be the only person in the town to express publicly any kind of faith. His only power is his goodness, which people make space for in the town. What makes his character so interesting to me is that while many admire his faith and even seem to long for his certainty in a divine purpose to make sense of everything, they can't seem to get there. For some it's because of their experience in the Civil War. Others because of the evils that exist in the town, the murder, greed, corruption and hate. But the show never plays down to his unswerving faith or seeks to portray it as some pathology. And when he undergoes a crisis of faith due to a progressive brain tumor that robs him of his connection to the Lord, but which he seems certain still exists on some level, the characters in the show, some of them the worst offenders, can't help but manifest the mercy they deem lacking in the Lord he still so fervently loves.

So below is one of the first conversations he has, with the doctor, where he first conveys his crisis of faith. And the doctor responds none too well to this troubled confession of faith, which sets up the doctor in a later episode to confront his own issues regarding God and His plan. The text by itself doesn't convey the tenderness and fear expressed by each character, so I'm including a video clip of another scene as well. It's of a sermon given by the reverend upon the death of Wild Bill Hickok, where he attempts to call some of the major players in the town to a divine understanding of the part all of us play in God's plan for the world. It also gives a sense of the amazing writing in this show, which is nearly as inspiring to me as anything else.

I also feel I should say, as a responsible blogger, this show is BRUTAL. It's incredibly graphic in all its portrayals of the good and evil found in humanity. I love this show but it's hard to recommend to everyone for those reasons!

Rev: Formerly, Doctor, when the work took me as I read scripture, people felt God’s presence through me and that was a great gift that I could give to them.Now the word does not take me when I read nor do I feel Christ’s love.Nor do those who listen hear it through me.

Doc: Alright.

Rev: This is God’s purpose...The not knowing the purpose is my portion of suffering.

Doc: And is there any pain competing with the not knowing?

Rev: I’m not in pain. There are new smells, I smell, and there are parts of my body I can’tfeel, and His—and His love.

Doc: And you want to continue like this?

Rev:As long as He wills, this must be my part...To be afraid, as well.

Doc: Well, if this is His will, Reverend... He is a sonofabitch. Goodnight.

What kind of just, loving God would create a station like HBO, guide talented writers and actors to it in a divine congregation, and churn out new seasons of The Sopranos, Deadwood, and the new show Big Love, and then leave me out of the picture? Are those the actions of a kind God?

I am really into Desperate Housewives. I think it's even in my Top 10 so far!

It feels funny to say that for some reason. Like I'm confessing that I still listen to and enjoy Andrew Dice Clay. I think it's because so many judgements are made about it, whether or not the show has actually been seen. But here's why I like it.

It's really well written, which I was really surprised by. The characters have all these interesting conflicts, ranging from the mundane to the dramatic. It has elements of American Beauty, where it takes place in this idyllic suburban heaven and people go to great lengths to keep up appearances, from physical (both personal and landscaping) to emotional. But scratch the surface and it has all these tensions boiling under the surface, and people are emotionally hamstrung because they don't talk with each other about it until there's a crisis.

And I also have to give it mad props for being the first TV show I've ever seen to portray so realistically what it's like to be new parents. From the couple being frustrated about never being able to spend time together, to the mother feeling like a failure because it's such an overwhelming service to perform, to how parenthood is gendered, both naturally and culturally. Six Feet Under, especially in Season 3, was the first one to approach it and really deal with those issues. But this has a whole different spin and explores it more from the mother's side (Six Feet more from the father's).

And it's also one of the only shows I watch where I actually like the characters, where I could see myself spending time with them. Soprano's? Deadwood? Even Lost? Brilliant shows. But I don't think I'd wanna spend too much time with the characters. But Housewives has all these different characters, the main ones being good people, trying their best.

Six Feet Under just kicked my ass (sorry for all the poop type talk lately--I'm starting to feel like dooce;). That's the only way I can think to say it. That's actually how I did say it when I called Suzanne and some friends. I'd just finished the third season (the last and final season just ended last week, sadly), and the season finale brought together two things I've been thinking about for years now. In that episode Claire goes to find her father's grave. When she arrives there's like a carnival going on in the cemetary. "What's going on here?", Claire says. Her father replies, "It's always like this". They talk a little, then she sees someone that disappeared in the first season. He talks about how life on earth wasn't a good environment, but now that he's dead he feels like he has a purpose. And he's doing service, making up for what he didn't, couldn't, do in this world. THEN, Claire talks about how being with her baby niece she gets to experience the "eternal youngness" of things all over again.THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT! How this world isn't everything, how we can develop in the next world and do service (that's how I understand it now), even why people die. They've done all they can in this world. It's as simple as that. I used to get so bogged down in thinking this life was IT, that's all. I lost a lot of my anxiety once I started to see life as this eternal continuum. And then, with Amia here, there's this crazy interplay of life and death, birth and renewal.It was so neat to see these ideas in conjunction with each other, and on the little screen to boot. It felt so...validating. To know that there's people out there, that I don't even know, that are approaching life in similar ways.Does anyone know why you can't just get HBO without getting every other channel in existence?